A big THANK YOU from all of us at GCF and from all giraffe in Africa. Giving Tuesday and the start of the holiday season has been a busy time and also a fantastic fundraising success. So, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for standing tall with us for giraffe! We would not be able to do what we do without your generosity and support. 

And, if you have not given yet, don’t worry – there is still time to make a difference!

The holiday season is meant to be a time of joy and of spending time with people who are important to us. With so much negativity in the world right now, it is important to focus on these little pockets of happiness. While war and conflict dominate the headlines, when values and morals do not seem to matter much anymore, giraffe can still bring a smile to our faces and some light to our hearts. And knowing that there is a community of people out there who are determined to do good – for giraffe and our planet – certainly gives us hope. 

With your help, our passionate GCF team is making a difference for giraffe and here are just a few examples of how we are doing this.

Together we are a voice for giraffe.

GCF remains at the forefront of giraffe research that is important for their conservation in the wild. A new scientific paper reveals high genetic diversity in giraffe and in turn highlights the urgent need for increased giraffe conservation efforts. GCF and partners undertook the first genomic-wide study of the three giraffe species that occur in Kenya. The peer-reviewed results show that while different species of giraffe can interbreed in captivity, they simply don't in the wild – the reasons for this remain a mystery. This paper further supports our previous findings that there are 4 distinct species of giraffe rather than just one.

Read more about this fascinating research on our website or download the full paper. For more information on giraffe, visit our GCF Giraffe Resource Centre, an online library of over 1,100 giraffe related articles and research papers. Our online GRC is a key tool in providing open access to this important information for the larger giraffe conservation community - in particular in Africa. Successful conservation only works in partnership.

The Twiga Tracker initiative is the largest GPS satellite tracking study ever conducted on giraffe. By tracking almost 500 giraffe of all four species in 17 African countries, we have collected an incredible amount of data that helps us and our partners to save giraffe and their habitat. Most recently, we added two more populations to our long list of tracked giraffe. Together with the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Research & Training Institute and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute we pioneered GPS satellite tracking of giraffe in the Masai Mara National Reserve and adjacent conservancies. It is the first time that endangered Masai giraffe are tracked remotely in the increasingly busy landscape of the Greater Masai Mara Ecosystem. Read more here.

In another first, and in collaboration with African Parks, we deployed trackers in Akagera National Park in Rwanda. There is much to learn about giraffe movements and how these iconic animals use their habitats in these very divers ecosystems and the data will inform the development of effective long-term conservation strategies. Read more here.

In a forever faster moving world, few people are taking the time to read detailed and long reports. As an action-focused organization, GCF has taken this to heart, and we are moving towards impact reporting. Check out our latest two impact reports for Northwest Namibia and Uganda, which give you a brief overview of giraffe numbers and our conservation actions.

Uganda supports the largest populations of critically endangered Nubian giraffe in the wild and since 2013 we have partnered with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to monitor and conserve these giraffe. The numbers speak for themselves.

In NW Namibia, GCF runs the longest-running giraffe conservation monitoring programme in Africa. We continue to learn more about giraffe, their movements and how they use their habitats. Have a look at the distance Jackson walked in a year – he sure is an explorer! – and find out how many new calves we have spotted.